The Reform of EU Economic Governance

Abstract

The main objective of this chapter is to explore and describe the EU's management of the economic and financial crisis, the leading role of the European Council in economic governance, the governmental and parliamentary institutions involved in EU economic governance, and the democratic character of the new system of economic governance. Applying new conceptual and methodological approaches, this study advances to the next level research on the political relevance of EU-level coordination in the area of economic governance, the new governance of fiscal discipline, the dynamic of building sovereignty at the EU level, and the economic governance of the Euro area. This chapter discusses the major trends in scholarship about the evolution of EU economic governance, the changing decision-making agenda of EU economic governance, the deficiencies in EU economic governance exposed by the crisis, and the slowness of the European measures on the regulation and governance of finance. The authors is specifically interested in how previous research investigated the categorization and exercise of EU competences, the economic government of the Euro area, supranational modes of policymaking, and the tendency of EU economic governance towards intergovernmental policy coordination.